Letter 16

April 11, 2011

Dear Renelle,

My celly is caged outdoors, and I have escaped similar treatment by being "indisposed" when it occurred. This was fortuitous indeed and couldn't have worked out better to shelter my sensibilities if I'd planned for it to happen this way. I write it, as I've got my mind set and fixed to go through the balance of my imprisonment as comfortably as possible--and don't want to detract from it by being herded outside into the dark elements into a cage with a stranger. I may get it wrong, but on this recurring issue, I don't think so. 

At times, my celly is somewhat inscrutable. I don't know much about his preferences, and I suspect he doesn't know much more about them himself, having been locked in for so many years without even any way of contacting the parents he left in Cuba. He's had to get what he could for nearly 30 years (!!), with nothing to start or work with.

Almost anyone else would likely be either catatonic or at the very least at an animal level of degeneration, after so long--but for some reason, he's actually a very decent, pleasant guy. That's the part I can't get my head around--why he acts the way he does (it's not an act unless it's a very good one). I'd be wrecked, destroyed, eaten alive with bitterness at the way I'd been treated, and enraged permanently at the seeming unfairness of it.

Am I completely off-kilter by making the comparison this way? Please let me know what your thoughts are on this. 

Regarding thoughts, one has been bouncing around in my head, generating a nearly audible sound. I'll do my best to write it as I think it. My celly isn't going to be moved anytime soon, and came to the same realization himself recently. Since I don't have that much more time until my release, and if I were again placed with the group at large (or medium), the same type of thing would likely happen as before. I don't want to chance getting so angered I snap and hurt others, getting an outside charge for myself at the same time. I'm willing to just tell the guy that comes around from State Classification what's going on and ask if I can't do another 6 months here. Do you think that's a workable idea, or a soft product of mushy thinking?

While I'm exploring some of my thoughts with you, I wonder if you can keep to yourself the next subject I'll broach. I'll consider your silence as an assent. My mom has always been "there" for me, no matter where I was or what shape I was in, so it grates on me badly that I'm powerless to do something to show her how much I've changed from the guy running around using drugs like I was. I'm almost sure I'm going to be kept away next month for her Birthday, Anniversary, and Mother's Day when I want so badly to be able to be and do--showing her the changes I've undergone. It feels to me about like I think knowing your arms were going to be amputated long before they were--and no matter what reasons were thought of to avoid it, they had to be taken. I know it's a fairly grisly way to think of it, but I'm not a pro. Point is, I want to do something for both of them, but can't.

I've already picked apart the thought until there's not an angle I can look at from I haven't already examined 10,000 times in detail already. It's a very rotten and unloveable bit of a jagged pill stuck in the throat not-dissolving kind of thing to realize for certain that no way, shape, or how can I do something to show how I feel/think now. Oh well--guess it could be worse; I might still be at ___! I often take situations for granted like that.

At any rate, it's Saturday, but we smurfs can't relax yet. Due to outside conditions prevailing (likely greed), we hardly ever are taken outside during the regular week; so brown brings the blue out over the weekend (in order to collect the bonus for it). For other reasons, the smurfs also have T.V. time and library scheduled today--if the officer is kept happy about all things, that is.

Also, among the activities for today--the Canteen items ordered 4/5 are being brought in. It really galls me that these sub-human types get giant sacks of food, and I get only 1 "pen." I have trouble grasping that some illiterate silverback mouth-breather gets to eat pretty much how he wants to, while I go hungry. Never mind that next week I'll get almost all I want (except a gate-pass) and could borrow against that now if I chose (but I'd chew off my legs first, because it's something a guy in my position doesn't do here). It's as unacceptable as working in a place completely out of financial reach to shop in--it's just not right.

The terrible noise from these partly-open cells is so awful I can barely hear all the voices in my head clearly now. Guess it goes with the territory, though. I received the receipt for money in my account (from my mom) on Friday (yesterday), but the orders were filled earlier in the week, so I lost out this time. Now most of the challenged ones are eating and quieter. I can now understand better the why of Hitler's Concentration Camp methodology--'nuff said.

All the chaos resulting from the distinctly non-disciplinarian way this place is run makes it tough to get into Oliver Twist from the aim of rewriting it in a more easily-understood style. Something I'm now convinced of, is that the way Dickens describes the settings and the "voice" he uses are what makes it as great as it is. I also am able to draw a comparison between Twist and a younger version of me, if it was made by a blind moron with no education and proud of it, too(!). 

In looking over this letter, I find the struggles I've written of in it to cover the gamut of my emotional spectrum. I say "my" as it's not the same in many instances, for I'm a bit emotionally retarded in comparison to everyone. 

There is one item I found looking through an 8-year-old National Geographic magazine from the library here that may prove vitally important if it's still in business. Exactly what it is is a possible publisher for all the various stuff I've written. I'll write and see if the organization is still viable, but if they are, I don't have all my writings here to send to them. Guess it's as good a way to wrap this up as anything else, giving the contact information for them. It's Vantage Press. 

Maybe they're still around. I'd appreciate it if my mom and you could contact them to find out any specifics for me. That's what's up in the here and now.

Your overstressed friend,

James